Fire and Ice

I. To the Thawing Wind
Come with rain, O loud Southwester! Bring the singer, bring the nester; Give the buried flower a dream; Make the settled snowbank steam; Find the brown beneath the white; But whate'er you do tonight, Bathe my window, make it flow, Melt it as the ice will go; Melt the glass and leave the sticks Like a hermit's crucifix; Burst into my narrow stall; Swing the picture on the wall; Run the rattling pages o'er; Scatter poems on the floor; Turn the poet out of door.
 
II. October
O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know. Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes' sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost-- For the grapes' sake along the wall.
 
III. Fragmentary Blue
Why make so much of fragmentary blue In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue? Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet) – Though some savants make earth include the sky; And blue so far above us comes so high, It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
 
IV. Going for Water
The well was dry beside the door, And so we went with pail and can Across the fields behind the house To seek the brook if still it ran; Not loth to have excuse to go, Because the autumn eve was fair (Though chill), because the fields were ours, And by the brook our woods were there. We ran as if to meet the moon That slowly dawned behind the trees, The barren boughs without the leaves, Without the birds, without the breeze. But once within the wood, we paused Like gnomes that hid us from the moon, Ready to run to hiding new With laughter when she found us soon. Each laid on other a staying hand To listen ere we dared to look, And in the hush we joined to make We heard, we knew we heard the brook. A note as from a single place, A slender tinkling fall that made Now drops that floated on the pool Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
 
V. The Demiurge's Laugh
It was far in the sameness of the wood; I was running with joy on the Demon's trail, Though I knew what I hunted was no true god. It was just as the light was beginning to fail That I suddenly heard - all I needed to hear: It has lasted me many and many a year. The sound was behind me instead of before, A sleepy sound, but mocking half, As one who utterly couldn't care. The Demon arose from his wallow to laugh, Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went; And well I knew what the Demon meant. I shall not forget how his laugh rang out. I felt as a fool to have been so caught, And checked my steps to make pretense It was something among the leaves I soought (Though doubtful whether he stayed to see). Thereafter I sat me against a tree.
 
VI. Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great and would suffice.
 
VII. Stars
How countlessly they congregate O'er our tumultuous snow, Which flows in shapes as tall as trees When wintry winds do blow!-- As if with keenness for our fate, Our faltering few steps on To white rest, and a place of rest Invisible at dawn,-- And yet with neither love nor hate, Those stars like some snow-white Minerva's snow-white marble eyes Without the gift of sight.
 
VIII. Pan With Us
Pan came out of the woods one day,-- His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, The gray of the moss of walls were they,-- And stood in the sun and looked his fill At wooded valley and wooded hill. He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, On a height of naked pasture land; In all the country he did command He saw no smoke and he saw no roof. That was well! And he stamped a hoof. His heart knew peace, for none came here To this lean feeding save once a year Someone to salt the half-wild steer, Or homespun children with clicking pails Who see no little they tell no tales. He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach A new-world song, far out of reach, For a sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech And the whimper of hawks beside the sun Were music enough for him, for one. Times were changed from what they were: Such pipes kept less of power to stir The fruited bough of the juniper And the fragile bluets clustered there Than the merest aimless breath of air. They were pipes of pagan mirth, And the world had found new terms of worth. He laid him down on the sun-burned earth And ravelled a flower and looked away-- Play? Play?--What should he play?